A progressive outlook on politics in Australia and abroad

Good Grief

JOHN Howard has fought back in key marginal seats in NSW and Victoria, giving the Coalition at least some new hope of winning the election, although Kevin Rudd has forged ahead in Queensland and South Australia.

Except that this is a special poll and does not show that Howard has made any kind of recovery. Nor does it show good news for the Coalition, as Sol Lebovic explains:

This latest Newspoll in the most marginal seats in NSW, Victoria, Queensland and South Australia shows the swing in these seats, 7per cent since the last election, is virtually identical to the 6.8 per cent national swing measured in last weekend’s Newspoll. If this 7per cent swing in these four states was uniformly replicated on election day, Labor would pick up 25 seats and easily win office. Even if the Coalition did extremely well in the other states and territories not covered by this poll there are just not enough seats available to counter this massive gain.

Even allowing for sampling error, and taking the best-case scenario for the Coalition, the Government would struggle to retain office on these numbers. Across the total sample the margin of error is about plus or minus 1.7 percentage points so the Coalition’s level of two-party support is statistically speaking between 45.3 and 48.7 per cent.